7 Common Pitfalls to Avoid With Your Mentoring Programs

Talent management and mentoring solutions firm Insala presented a webinar, “Why MentoringPrograms Can Fail – The Common Pitfalls to Avoid,” led by Judy Corner Director, Consulting Services. Corner shared the seven common pitfalls and ways you can get around them.

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7 Common Pitfalls to Avoid With Your Mentoring Programs

1. Lack of structure and guidance.
2. Lack of clarity of purpose.
3. Lack of interest or support from management.
4. People do not understand their roles.
5. No training of ‘how-to’.
6. Inability to go to someone if the partnership is not working.
7. Inability to manage program and ensure sustainability.

The seven common reasons why mentoring programs fail demonstrates that the plan and process wasn’t well-thought out or implemented and managed properly. A proper system was not created to introduce, operate, evaluate and manage the mentoring program.

How to Avoid Failure of Your Mentoring Program

Plan

• Establish clear objectives for your mentoring program and tie them to the organizational objectives.
• Take the time to make sure that you have identified all the challenges. Conduct a pilot of the mentoring program to work out the kinks before introducing it company wide.
• Nominate a mentoring program administrator that participants can go to when they have questions, issues and challenges.

Implement

• Market and brand the mentoring program.
• Communicate the process and what it entails to the entire organization.
• Train mentors, mentees, supervisors, managers and program administrators so they know what is expected of them.

Evaluate

• Track the progress of each mentoring partnership. Is it working the way it should?

Manage

• Track the interactions between mentors and mentees, and the progress of each using an online solution. You have to use an online tool to ensure sustainability of the program.

One thing that struck me which I appreciated about the Insala mentoring system, which is absent from most, is training not only the mentees and mentors, but also the program administrators and managers/supervisors.

Which of the pitfalls have you encountered with your mentoring program? Please write your thoughts in the comment box below. If you enjoyed this post please consider sharing it.

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